08/10/2017

Vacations and job stress

To what extent does the evidence support a causal influence of vacations on happiness and stress? Photo: Syda Productions/Shutterstock

Here are some quasi-experimental and correlational studies on vacations, just in time for the end of summer. The APS website describes a few studies consistent with the argument that vacations can be good for your mental health. Here's one study by researchers Sabine Sonnentag and Jana Kühnel:

The researchers surveyed 131 teachers before and after a two week break from school.

First, they had the teachers complete a measure of exhaustion—how emotionally drained and burned out they felt the day before heading out for vacation. The teachers then completed weekly surveys on how engaged they were with their work, relaxed, and stressed they felt four weeks after returning from vacation.

As predicted, the results indicated that vacationing had a beneficial effect. Not only did the teachers report feeling less tired and emotionally burned out, they also reported feeling more engaged and positive about their work.

a) This is a quasi-experiment. What is the study's "independent" variable? What is/are its dependent variable(s)?

b) Would you call the design a non-equivalent groups posttest only? non-equivalent groups pretest/posttest? Interrupted time series? Or non-equivalent groups interrupted time series?

c) Consider the 12 internal validity threats in Table 11.1. Which threats can this study rule out? Which threats might still apply?

d) Sketch a graph of the results of the study, incorporating this (more negative) message:

But, these benefits were fairly short-lived, particularly for those teachers who came back to especially difficult students and heavy workloads. Within four weeks, the vacation’s positive benefits had faded and teachers were back to their initial levels of stress and emotional exhaustion.

The article also suggests that when it comes to spending money, money spent on vacations is associated with more happiness than money spent on material goods.

...psychological scientists Amit Kumar and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University and Matthew Killingsworth of University of California, San Francisco tracked moment-to-moment data from 2,266 adults as part of a large-scale experience-sampling project. Participants received notifications from the researchers on their iPhones at random times throughout the day.

Comparing data from individual participants across different times, Gilovich and colleagues found that people were happier at times when they were thinking about a future experiential purchase, like a ski trip, than they were at times when they weren’t thinking about a purchase at all. There was no relative increase or decrease in happiness when people were thinking about a future material purchase.

e) The above study is a correlational one, with a twist. The researchers computed a correlation for each individual person, using "experience" as the unit of analysis. Given the results described above, what might a bar graph depict for a typical person in this study? (what would be on each axis, and what would the results pattern depict?)

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